elsimon@QVOLE.

ORG

[LRL] Latino Mortality rate

COVID-19 mortality rate analysis just published by Unión del Barrio:

"La Raza, Barrio Self-Defense & Real Political Power: Ten Difficult Lessons Unión del Barrio Takes Away
From Trumpism/COVID-19"

For more information see:

http://uniondelbarrio.org/main/?p=4624

https://www.facebook.com/UniondelBarrio/posts/4160409453977450

______________________________________________
"...In the same way as these meat processors were used as pandemic cannon-fodder, raza workers in
the U.S. and across Nuestra América bore the brunt of the pandemic. As of March 2021, these are the
ten highest
COVID-19 mortality rates on earth:[21]

Yemen – 22.8%
Mexico – 9%
Syria – 6.7%
Sudan – 6.3%
Egypt – 5.9%
Ecuador – 5.3%
China – 4.8%
Bolivia – 4.6%
Afghanistan – 4.4%
Somalia – 4.3%

To be clear, the fact that Mexico has the second highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the world does not
mean that the virus is unusually anti-Mexican. This horrific mortality rate is actually a function of social-
political factors within Mexico. In other words, the 9% mortality rate in Mexico is proof that the political-
economic system helped make this virus more lethal than anywhere else in the world outside of Yemen.
At earlier points during the pandemic, mortality rates in Mexico reached levels as high as 20%. These
numbers are evidence that the political-economic system is not designed to protect our gente, and to
put it plainly, it is the clearest proof that Mexico needs a revolution, because the Mexican state is an
abomination.

During March 2021, the average U.S. mortality rate was listed as 1.8%.
Yet, in the 128 U.S. counties where la raza represents more than 50% of the local population, the
average COVID-19 mortality rate was 2.4%.[22] Approximately 32 million people (just under 10% of the
total U.S.
population) live in one of these 128 counties. Yet,13% of total U.S.
cases, and 13% of total U.S. deaths have been residents of one of these
128 raza-majority counties.
In California, the 13 counties where raza represent more than 50% of the local population, the average
reported COVID-19 mortality rate was 1.4%.
Although this is below the U.S. national average mortality rate of 1.8%, the systemic catastrophe in
California was demonstrated in the failure to slow the rate of infections across raza communities. Just
46% (18.3
million) of the total population of California live in one of these 13 raza-majority counties, while over
60% of the total infections, and 63% of the total deaths in the entire state of California were suffered by
residents of one of these raza-majority counties.[23]

In Texas, the pandemic exposed how the state has organized its 254 counties to serve as an anti-raza
apartheid-reservation system designed to keep our gente in check. Texas has 66 counties where raza
represent more than 50% of the local population, and across these locations the average reported
COVID-19 mortality rate was 2.8%, one full point over the 1.8% U.S. average mortality rate. Only 21%
(5.9 million) of the total population of Texas live in one of these 66 raza-majority counties, while
residents of these raza-majority counties suffered over 24% of the total COVID-19 infections, and 32% of
the total deaths in the entire state of Texas.[24] What is even more obscene about Texas, is that across
8 of the hardest hit raza-majority counties, the average of their COVID-19 mortality rates is 4.9%. If
these 8 counties in Texas were a separate country, that country would be #7 of the top 10 highest
mortality rates on earth, between Ecuador and China.[25]

These horrendous statistics are incomplete, and we need more time to process the data for our raza-
centered analysis of COVID-19 in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, New York, and South
Dakota. But we already know that colonial borders and border walls will not protect us from future
pandemics, because the systemic failures of neoliberal governments already transformed this pandemic
into a colonial genocide.

Throughout Nuestra América, COVID-19 infections and deaths mirror our subordinate position in terms
of the acute crisis within this colonial-imperialist system. We continue to see how la raza bears the brunt
of COVID infections and deaths, while our barrios are the last to receive the vaccines. Even with the
recent passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID package, we expect little of those resources will be directed
towards attending to the desperate collective needs of our communities.
Our barrios have been devastated by COVID, and our inability to defend working-class raza has cost our
communities many lives.

We must recognize our lack of institutional and organizational capacity needed to provide medical
education, advocacy, and services to our barrios. Long before Trump, our communities were denied
institutional support and resources in times of crisis (massive fires, floods, earthquakes, deadly winters,
and previous epidemics). But it was under trumpista fascism operating under a scarcity of healthcare
resources, that we saw the true face of the healthcare crisis among our peoples, and as a consequence,
we will mourn our COVID-19 dead for generations."

______________________________________________

"La Raza, Barrio Self-Defense & Real Political Power: Ten Difficult Lessons Unión del Barrio Takes Away
From Trumpism/COVID-19"

For more information see:

http://uniondelbarrio.org/main/?p=4624